


Five Times the World Was Wide Enough

by feverbeats



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6297706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and Burr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times the World Was Wide Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: suicidality.
> 
> Thanks for Gwen for some of the ideas in number five.

**one**

Hamilton fires into the trees, and for a second Burr isn't certain of what's happened, but-- _wait_ \--he looks at Hamilton's face and knows. In the moment it takes to know, he's already firing past Hamilton's ear. He sees Hamilton's face change again, into something between relief and disappointment.

Van Ness tugs at Burr's arm, but all Burr can see is Alexander. His hatred crystallizes and snaps. The shot has shaken something free inside him, but he doesn't have time to examine it yet. For the past few months, he's felt as if time is shorter and shorter. No more waiting. But now he's frozen.

"Go," Hamilton tells Pendleton. Burr isn't certain for a moment that his lips have moved at all.

"Aaron," Van Ness says, still trying to pull Burr out of the moment that's trapped him.

"Go," Burr echoes Hamilton. "This is over." He hopes Hamilton understands that.

The sun is up now, which seems wrong. Burr has to do something. He has to move. He's still so furious. With the other men gone, the situation feels fraught. Is it safe for them to be alone together with guns? Is it even safe for them to be alone with each other and their hands?

The fear, the knowledge of what almost happened chills Burr, but he unfreezes and closes the distance between them. "Did I let you down?" he spits. "I won't be your executioner, Alexander."

Hamilton laughs ruefully. "No? Then teach me not to need one, Burr." He's shivering in the early morning air.

Burr wants to says, _That's not my job_. But it's not as if it's anyone else's job, so maybe he'll take it up like he's known all along it was what he was meant to be doing. Maybe Hamilton knew. Burr won't lie and pretend he did.

They came so close. Burr's hands are shaking, too. "How the hell do we come back from this?"

Hamilton shrugs, but his expression is exactly what Burr is feeling. They've gone too far to ever be friends again, if that's what they were.

"Are you going to stop saying the worst things you can possibly think of about me?" The last few have turned his stomach and enraged him beyond belief.

Hamilton takes his glasses off and polishes them. "I don't know," he says.

Again, Burr closes the distance that remains. He finds himself holding Hamilton. He didn't think he could touch him without destroying him. Does this make him weak, or kind? Neither. It makes him caught in Hamilton's orbit, just as he always has been.

"This is still going to kill us," he mutters into Hamilton's hair.

Hamilton says a noncommittal noise. "Maybe," he says. "But not today."

Burr breathes into Hamilton's hair and feels Hamilton's heart beat against him. _We're both wrong_ , he thinks. _The sun is up and we're both still alive. If we survived being this angry once, we'll know how to do it next time, and the time after_.

They're not free of each other, or of being angry, but Burr doesn't think it will ever go this far again.

**two**

Burr looks at the letter in his hands, which are shaking. No surprise. Rage is his primary emotion when Hamilton is done speaking his mind. He isn't even sure if Hamilton believes half the awful shit he says.

He would say that Hamilton has finally gone too far, but he went too far years ago. Now he's just gone far enough that Burr can see clearly what he has to do.

Talk more.

He writes back to Hamilton and demands a meeting. Neutral ground, only it isn't, because it's New York. New York has been their battleground too many times already.

Neither of them is smiling this time. Hamilton looks like he's burning under the skin, but not with the fire of ambition Burr is used to. Burr's taken all of that for himself. Hamilton is just a shell.

Burr wants to kill him.

"So," Hamilton says. "Talk."

"Are you going to apologize?" Burr asks coldly. Put that sickly fire out.

They're in a cafe, because that's supposed to be safe, but neither of them is comfortable. Burr would have preferred a pub, because he doesn't know if he can have this conversation sober. He can't talk his way into a fight. That's Hamilton's job.

Hamilton thumbs his mug on the table and laughs. "Apologize. Me. Yeah, we know how that's gonna go. You know this is just a formality. You know what you're about to do."

He looks awful. Burr hasn't looked at him properly, especially since Philip died. Is Burr going to issue a challenge? He doesn't _want_ that. Not really.

"The issue we're discussing--" he starts.

"Isn't just _the issue_ ," Hamilton finishes for him. "It's everything since we were eighteen."

Burr runs his finger over and over the same wooden grain of the table. "The problem when we were eighteen was different."

Hamilton scoffs. "Oh, sure. It wasn't that I stepped in and overshadowed your shit?"

"It was that you didn't care!" Burr snaps. Too loud, for this small cafe.

Hamilton looks up, very slowly and carefully, as if the moment will break. There's sun coming in through the window, and it feels all wrong for what's happening. "Burr. Don't tell me you've spent three decades hating me because I didn't have a crush on you. We've fucked how many times?"

" _Quiet,_ " Burr hisses. People are still looking from when he raised his voice. And that's not how it is. That's a ludicrous cheapening of why he's angry. He takes a breath and talks more. "It's because you take everything and give nothing."

And he sees something in Hamilton give.

After a few taut seconds, Hamilton says, "Take me home."

So Burr takes Hamilton into his bed, which he swore he wouldn't do again, but this is an experiment. How much will Hamilton give? At what point will he snap back into the violently selfish person he's always been? 

Burr kisses Hamilton and feels him _give_ again.

He strips Hamilton naked and Hamilton doesn't protest.

He gets him on the bed, on hands and knees, and he's inside and Hamilton surges back to meet him, compliant, energetic--relieved?

Burr is relieved, too. Is this because Hamilton has finally lost enough to be humbled? But this isn't humility, it's compromise.

Afterwards, Hamilton doesn't even get up and try to leave, although Burr can feel from the tension in his shoulders that he wants to.

"Next time," Hamilton says. "Next time you can shoot me."

Burr presses his thumb to the small of Hamilton's back, the fight completely gone from him. If he took this insult without ending Hamilton, he'll probably take another. If he knows this is still what's underneath, he won't even mind too much.

**three**

All Burr can think about, besides how badly his leg hurts, is how hard Hamilton is shaking.

"Were you trying to kill me?"

Hamilton gives a disbelieving little chuckle."Shit, Burr. If I'd trying to kill you, you'd be dead."

"He still might," Van Ness says testily. "You need to stop the bleeding."

With a feeling of unreality, Burr watches Hamilton kneel and rip off a strip of his shirt.

"You need to let the doctor do that," Van Ness snaps. Hamilton doesn't listen.

"I don't understand," Burr says. It's his leg, and it's a graze. "What were you trying to _do?_ "

"Defuse," Hamilton suggests. He won't look at Burr.

" _You?_ " He's never known Hamilton to defuse anything. Then again, he's never known himself to light anything on fire before.

"Well, you didn't," Hamilton says delicately.

Burr realizes that maybe he scared Hamilton. It's a bizarre thought, especially as Hamilton has just shot him. "I didn't want to. I wanted this to explode."

He thought Hamilton did, too. Hamilton doesn't say anything, though. He just finishes dressing Burr's leg.

_Oh_ , Burr thinks. Hamilton is a genius, and Burr's leg is bleeding, and he doesn't want to kill Hamilton anymore. Not today.

**four**

It takes a month for the ghost to show up.

By that point, Burr's so drunk and doing such stupid things in bed that he's ready to believe anything. That Alexander is tormenting him from beyond the grave. That he deserves it.

The ghost begins by writing to him ( _of course_ ). Burr is looking over something for Jefferson, upright and at his desk for the first time in weeks, and he finds the letter. 

It's hard not to belief it's Alexander. Nobody else writes like him. Nobody else could be so brilliant, so funny, so fucking _long-winded._ And it can't be all in Burr's head, either, because he's not that clever.

_My dear Burr,_ it starts, which is a fucking joke. It congratulates Burr for how destroyed he's been. It references several women he's had, and the one man who's had him. _Really, Burr, Jefferson? I'd say you could do better, but all your better lovers wind up dead. You heard me._

He rubs his eyes, but the letter remains real, sitting on his desk. The ink of the signature is still wet. Burr wishes Hamilton had shot him.

The signs after that are unmistakable. Candles going on, candles flaring to life. More little notes, left everywhere. _Don't forget to pick up bread,_ one remarks. And more ominously, _You shouldn't leave your pistol lying around._ He hadn't, but it's out on the table. So the ghost can lift things.

He can't tell anyone about it. What would he say? They'd lock him up. Maybe that's what Alexander wants. There's no question in Burr's mind that this is real. God is punishing him with a haunting, and maybe that's fair.

Ghosts are supposed to have unfinished business. Burr can't possibly tie up all of Alexander's. It would take a lifetime, and most of it Burr is squarely against. Maybe it's just his unfinished business with Burr. Burr isn't sure what that would be, either.

He decides to show the ghost that he's moving on. That he's all right with having murdered him and that his life is better for it.

He brings a woman home and fucks her in his bed. He knows the ghost is watching him. He can _feel_ it. He still can't see anything, though. Afterwards, the ghost doesn't write anything to him for three days.

Maybe it's working.

On the third day, however, the ghost tears up every paper in Burr's office and writes _slut_ across anything he'd planned to send to Jefferson.

Why did it have to be Alexander? Why couldn't it have been Theodosia?

Burr cleans up everything in his office. Then he stands in the center of the room and breathes until he's not angry anymore. Hamilton can't just be a vengeful spirit trying to ruin his life. It would be such a fucking waste.

So Burr tries making space for the ghost. He leaves bread out for it--it seems to like bread. He's not sure what that's about. He leaves a corner of his desk clear, with paper and ink. He writes letters back to it, dismantling Hamilton's ideas, point by point.

When he starts feeling too crazy, he goes to see Jefferson.

Jefferson is sitting in his office, looking harassed, which has been happening more often lately. He's not cut out for this. It makes Burr bitterly happy to see.

"Do you think the dead judge us?" Burr asks by way of greeting.

Jefferson's eyebrows go up. "You said you weren't worried about that. Feeling guilty?"

Burr can't tell if he's guilty or not. "Let me try again. Do you think the dead ever want something from us? And if so, what?"

"You've lost me."

Burr tries to think what he would want, if that morning had gone differently. "I think if I were dead, I'd be beyond wanting anything. A ghost has no ambition. It has no need for absolution. What does a ghost want?"

"I think the stress is getting to you," Jefferson says lightly. "Try not murdering people next time."

And that's it. He murdered Alexander, his Alexander, and he can't even admit that he's sorry.

That night, Burr puts out all the candles and stands in the darkness of his office.

"Are you there?" he asks.

Nothing. He can feel the ghost's presence.

"Can I touch you?" he asks. "Can I kiss you?" It is, he realizes, what he wants. His eyes strain against the darkness now, desperate to see something.

"I'm sorry," he says.

And he can see it. Embarrassingly, infuriatingly, now he can see it. There's a faint, faint outline, almost an afterimage, of Alexander in front of him. He's dressed in what he was wearing when he died. He looks amused.

"Burr," he says. Can you imagine?

Burr isn't sure what he's expecting after that. For the ghost to dissipate, probably. But all that happens is that he can see it more often. Not all the time, and it only speaks at night, but when it does, it's pure Alexander. Burr loses sleep some nights, but overall? He sleeps better. Often, he can even feel the ghost in bed with him.

He stops thinking of it as _the ghost_.

He stops caring when Jefferson looks at him suspiciously.

He's alive with the knowledge that the world is bigger than he ever dreamed, and that he's been handed another chance.

**five**

Burr gets drunk for a week. He fucks everyone in sight. He stays off main streets and doesn't read the papers. He tells everyone he doesn't give a shit, which works well, as long as he's drunk and fucking.

Alexander is dead and Burr killed him.

In private, he holds Theo's hand and sobs into her shoulder, begs her to tell him that Hamilton wanted to die. A dutiful daughter, she lies for him.

In public, he laughs and shakes hands and pretends he isn't worried about going to prison or hell.

They're going to try him for murder.

He's drunk almost every night, and he can't understand why nothing has come rushing in to fill the void that Hamilton left. He expected it to be filled by success, or at least the freedom to breathe easier, but he feels like he's dying and he can't get his life in order. Time will change that, he thinks. It has to.

He has a lot of time to reflect on what Alexander meant to him, and why this is not the victory he hoped for when he stood ready and furious on the dueling ground in New Jersey. Instead, he drinks, fucks, and tries to find other things that will fill the void.

The only thing that comes close is Theo, and she has her own life now. It's too bad Jefferson is refusing to see him. That would help a little. The last time they spoke, he said, "What the fuck have you done?" and slammed the door in Burr's face.

Months pass, and nothing is better. He spends time with Theo and her idiot (rich) husband. He sees his grandson. He never goes to trial.

Finally, he goes back to the capitol. By that time Jefferson has forgiven him enough to speak civilly to him (Jefferson never liked Hamilton anyway, so how is this treatment fair?) and everything is going according to plan. Burr's still empty, empty, empty.

The summer is hot, and Burr, who expected to be galvanized to action, is paralyzed instead. The vice presidency is a joke. His life is a joke. Hamilton is dead, but Burr still lost. He doesn't even have an outlet for his anger anymore, so he's starting to lose it. Instead, there's nothing.

(Hamilton will never be in his bed again. Hamilton will never write him another letter.)

The world has changed its shape.

Burr has been in the capitol a month when he decides he can't take it anymore. He gets so drunk that he won't be able to stop himself from doing something stupid, and he goes for a walk by the river.

The next day, he's been in two fights, but he's still not dead.

He tries drinking less. He feels less sick, but he has more space in his head for his thoughts. Madison still won't even _talk_ to him, which is worse than Jefferson's sudden curt professionalism.

One night, sober, he loads a pistol and holds it in his hand, just to think about the weight.

He's halfway between thought and action when there's a knock on the door.

It's Alexander.

It isn't possible. But there he is, standing in front of Burr. Glasses, hair back, worst outfit. The next thing that strikes Burr is how _old_ Hamilton looks. He's leaning on a cane, and Burr can't figure out why, until he remembers where the bullet entered.

Burr opens his mouth but there's nothing to say. The pistol is still in his hand, but he can't feel it.

"Burr," Hamilton says sharply, his expression changing from serene triumph to concern.

Burr sinks to his knees, still in the doorway. "I don't understand," he says. It's barely intelligible. He looks at the pistol, vaguely hoping it doesn't look like a threat. "I don't understand."

"The doctor said I wouldn't walk again, but he also said I wouldn't live through the night, so," Hamilton says. Now he's smug again.

Burr refocuses and gets to his feet, realizing that maybe the pistol _should_ be a threat. "You let me think you were dead. You let _everyone_ think you were dead." How is this happening? Is this real? He's fantasized--yes, he can admit it--about something like this.

"I had to--reassess things." Hamilton waves his hand. "And yeah, I was pissed off that you shot me."

It's like a dream, or a nightmare. Burr keeps looking at the pistol in his hand. "Do you know what I was about to do?" he says, feeling dangerous.

Hamilton's smile flickers. "Burr--can I come in? Just to talk? I need to sit."

So Burr lets him in, because what else can he do, at this point? They sit on the couch and Hamilton explains lying in bed, delirious with pain, and begging the doctors to keep it from the public. Nobody knew but his family.

"And now I'm finally well enough to walk, and I walk in on you trying to kill yourself," Hamilton says. "That wasn't the plan."

Burr can't imagine what the plan was. "I wasn't going to kill myself."

Hamilton shrugs this off. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have done it, probably. But I was upset that you shot me, Burr."

"You wanted it." Burr wants to test this theory, but mostly he's doesn't feel like giving Hamilton any slack in the face of this much cruelty.

Hamilton hesitates. "I don't know," he says. "I know I made a choice, and there were other ways that could have gone."

Burr doesn't doubt it. There are other ways Alexander's return could have gone, too. The pistol is still in Burr's hand. He feels the numerous possibilities, coiled inside it.

But there are mistakes he just can't afford to make again. He can already feel himself beginning to forgive Alexander. He can already tell what Alexander's skin will feel like against his. He'll be sober then, too. He'll have some new ideas for how to fuck Jefferson over and take back control of his job. Suddenly, anything is possible.


End file.
